What is a healthy weight for a 12-year-old girl who is 5 feet 3 inches tall?

A:

Quick Answer

According to the Center for Disease Control, a healthy weight for a girl who is 12 years old and 5 feet 3 inches tall is between 84 and 122 pounds. This range puts her between the 5th and 85th percentile of the Body Mass Index chart.

Keep Learning

Calculating a child or teenager's BMI is a useful tool for identifying obesity or malnutrition, but it is far from an exact medical diagnosis. The BMI does not exactly measure the amount of a child's body fat, but rather it is an approximation based on the height and weight of other children of the same age and sex.